Reisman Samuel, Balboul Mostafa, Jones Tashzna
SUNY Downstate College of Medicine, Brooklyn, NY, United States of America.
PeerJ. 2019 Jan 23;7:e6318. doi: 10.7717/peerj.6318. eCollection 2019.
-curve has been proposed as a statistical test of evidential value. The distributions of sets of statistically significant -values are tested for skewness. -curves of true effects are right-skewed, with greater density at lower -values than higher -values. Analyses of null effects result in a flat or left-skewed distribution. The accuracy of -curve has not been tested using published research analyses of a null effect. We examined whether -curve accurately rejects a set of significant -values obtained for a nonexistent effect.
Homeopathic ultramolecular dilutions are medicinal preparations with active substances diluted beyond Avogadro's number. Such dilute mixtures are unlikely to contain a single molecule of an active substance. We tested whether -curve accurately rejects the evidential value of significant results obtained in placebo-controlled clinical trials of homeopathic ultramolecular dilutions.
-curve accurately rejected the evidential value of significant results obtained in placebo-controlled clinical trials of ultramolecular dilutions. Robustness testing using alternate -values yielded similar results.
Our results suggest that -curve can accurately detect when sets of statistically significant results lack evidential value.
-曲线已被提议作为证据价值的统计检验方法。对具有统计学显著性的-值集合的分布进行偏度检验。真实效应的-曲线呈右偏态，较低-值处的密度高于较高-值处。对无效效应的分析会导致分布平坦或左偏。尚未使用已发表的无效效应研究分析来检验-曲线的准确性。我们研究了-曲线是否能准确拒绝为不存在的效应所获得的一组显著-值。
顺势疗法超分子稀释剂是活性物质稀释超过阿伏伽德罗常数的药物制剂。这种稀释混合物不太可能含有单个活性物质分子。我们测试了-曲线是否能准确拒绝在顺势疗法超分子稀释剂的安慰剂对照临床试验中获得的显著结果的证据价值。
-曲线准确拒绝了在超分子稀释剂的安慰剂对照临床试验中获得的显著结果的证据价值。使用替代-值的稳健性检验产生了类似的结果。
我们的结果表明，-曲线可以准确检测出一组具有统计学显著性的结果何时缺乏证据价值。
